Week in Photos

Students vandalize the outer wall of the US embassy, during a protest in Manila. The protesters staged a lightning rally on the first day of the 2012 Balikatan Exercises, war games between US and Philippine troops that will take place simultaneously in several parts of the Philippines.

AFP/Getty Images

Derek and Lynn Chambers of Belfast, “Titanoracs” who were married on Good Friday, climb stairs being blessed on board the Titanic Memorial Cruise as it approached Halifax, Canada. The cruise retraced the voyage from Southampton of the ill-fated Titanic liner, which hit an iceberg and sank 100 years ago on April 15, 1912.

REUTERS

Kashmiri fishermen throw nets into Dal lake at sunset in Srinagar. Tourism workers are hoping that the summer will lead to a renewal of a tourist rush to the scenic region.

AFP/Getty Images

Joshua R. Cassidy, of Canada, pumps his fist and yells as he crosses the finish line to win the men’s wheelchair division of the 116th Boston Marathon.

AP Photo

Cardinal Timothy Dolan signs autographs after celebrating mass for Father Martin Svitan at the Saint John Nepomucene Church in New York.

Paul Martinka

An aerial view of the destruction of the Oaklawn neighborhood in Wichita, Kansas. Residents of several states scoured through the wreckage of battered homes and businesses Sunday after dozens of tornadoes blitzed the Midwest and Plains.

AP Photo

Soldiers from 16 Air Assault Brigade parachute to the ground during Exercise Joint Warrior over fields near Stranraer in south west Scotland. Operation Joint Warrior which focused on a theatre entry operation into a notional country, involved over 1600 troops and was supported by Apache and Chinook helicopters and aircraft from the U.S. and France.

REUTERS

Anders Behring Breivik raises his fist as he arrives to courtroom for the first day of his trial in Oslo. The terrorism and murder trial against Norwegian mass killer Anders Behring Breivik, who has confessed to the bomb and shooting attacks that killed 77 people in Norway in July 2011.

REUTERS

An anti-government protester runs holding a teargas canister fired by riot police during clashes after a procession to visit the grave of Ismael Abdulsamad in the village of Salmabad south of Manama.

REUTERS

A 48-year-old Ravichandran, who performs the role of Charlie Chaplin in different events, entertains children in Chennai, India. Ravichandran entertained children of his neighborhood on April 16 to celebrate the birthday of the British actor and comedian.

EPA

Soldiers take part in a military parade to celebrate the centenary of the birth of North Korea’s founder Kim Il-sung in Pyongyang.

REUTERS

An Occupy Wall Street protester is arrested by New York Police Officers in the financial district across from the New York Stock Exchange in New York.

REUTERS

The Japan synchronized swimming team practices a routine during a training session at the Olympic Acquatics centre ahead of the qualification competition, at the Olympic Park in Stratford, East London.

REUTERS

Beth Stone dances with an Elvis-clad Bob Henry during the 20th annual Rajun Cajun Crawfish Festival benefiting Porter-Leath in downtown Memphis, Tenn. This year 16,150 pounds of crawfish were cooked and served to the crowd that enjoyed a sunny yet blustery day.

AP Photo

Helen Yu of San Francisco, takes photos in front of the Maid of the Mist tour boat under a rainbow at the Horseshoe Falls during the warm spring weather in Niagara Falls, N.Y.

Artists dressed as Indian Gods pose next to the “Red Ribbon Express” train in Bangalore. The Red Ribbon Express III train is on a countrywide mission, spreading awareness about HIV/AIDS campaign on wheels.

EPA

Chinese young athletes practice Taekwondo techniques before the rehearsal of ceremony to mark 100-day countdown to London 2012 Olympic Games outside the Bird’s Nest in Beijing, China.

Getty Images

A man rides a bike, past smoke from a house fire in Tampa, Florida. The fire destroyed a two story house on Tuesday morning.

ZUMAPRESS.com

Hundreds of families present their food offerings to Buddhist monks from the Orange County Cambodian Buddhist Organization during the Cambodian New Year celebrations in Santa Ana, Calif.

ZUMAPRESS.com

Seasonal asparagus harvesters work on their vegetable crops near Elsholz, southwest of Berlin, Germany.

AP Photo

Iranian troops march during a military parade commemorating National Army Day in front of the mausoleum of the late revolutionary founder Ayatollah Khomeini, outside Tehran, Iran.

AP Photo

A Kashmiri vegetable vendor holds a basket of bread at a floating market in the interiors of the Dal Lake in Srinagar. India’s wholesale price index (WPI) rose a faster-than-expected 6.89 percent in March from a year earlier, mainly driven by higher food prices.

REUTERS

Nazir Haynesworth, 14, of Philadelphia laughs as he plays in the fountain at Logan Circle in Philadelphia.

AP Photo

Black smoke rises from oil containers as firefighters try to extinguish a fire that broke out at the Nasr Petroleum Company refinery in the Egyptian city of Suez. Five people were killed and dozens injured while the cause of the blaze, which set off an explosion, was not immediately known.

REUTERS

Children cross a temporary bridge after school in Lok Kruet village, in Aceh Besar, Indonesia.

REUTERS

Dyed water is sprayed by Indian police on Kashmiri government employees to disperse a protest by the in Srinagar. Indian police on Tuesday used water cannon and batons to disperse hundreds of government employees while detaining dozens as they attempt to reach the office of the divisional commissioner to demand for long pending arrears in Srinagar.

REUTERS

Myanmar pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi shakes hand with supporters at a ceremony to mark Myanmar New Year Day in her constituency of Kawhmu township. Major opposition party leader Aung San Suu Kyi has set up a foundation named after her late mother Daw Khin Kyi to help the poor across the country, mainly in the area of education and health.

REUTERS

An environmental activist in an animal costume is detained by police during a protest outside a hotel hosting the “Russian Arctic Oil and Gas” business conference in Moscow.

REUTERS

The space shuttle Discovery, attached to a modified NASA 747 aircraft, takes off headed for its final home at The Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum’s Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center in Chantilly, Virginia, from the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida.

REUTERS

Pope Benedict XVI caresses a child during his weekly general audience in St. Peter’s square at the Vatican.

AP Photo

Ecuadorian sailors of the tall ship BAE Guayas man the yardarms as they arrive in New Orleans in conjunction with The War of 1812 Bicentennial Commemoration in New Orleans.

AP Photo

Spain’s King Juan Carlos prepares to leave a hospital in Madrid. Carlos says he is sorry for having gone on African elephant-hunting trip. In an unprecedented gesture, the 74-year-old monarch said he was “very sorry. I made a mistake. It won’t happen again.” The king came under scathing criticism this week after he went on a safari trip to Botswana as Spain writhes in its one of its worst ever economic crises. The trip came to light when the king ended up having to be taken to hospital for hip treatment after having fallen.

AP Photo

A major fire destroys homes at a slum in Matinha neighborhood, in southern Manaus, Brazil.

ZUMAPRESS.com

A Russian soldiers marches during a rehearsal of the Victory Day Parade in Alabino, outside Moscow. The parade will take place on the Red Square in Moscow on May 9 to commemorate the 1945 defeat of Nazi Germany.

AFP/Getty Images

Yu Gao of China presents her invention, an emergency landing system of multi-layer parachutes for airplanes, seen at the 40th International Exhibition of Inventions, New Techniques and Products, in Geneva, Switzerland. More than 780 exhibitors from around the world are presenting around 1,000 products.

AP Photo

Ash and smoke are spewed from Popocatepetl Volcano as seen from the city of Puebla, in the Mexican central state of Puebla. Residents of nearby communities reported roaring noises from the Popocatepetl volcano Tuesday after signs of increased activity prompted authorities to raise alert levels.

AFP/Getty Images

A worker drinks water while harvesting wheat crop at a field in Jhanpur village of the northern Indian state of Punjab. India’s wheat harvesting could touch a record 90 million tons in 2012, a record output for the second straight year.

REUTERS

Members of Peru’s Shining Path terrorist group, speak to journalists in a remote jungle region in southern Peru, Cuzco. Martin Quispe Palomino and his rebel group claimed to be responsible for the kidnapping of 36 gas pipeline workers who were released on April 14 and to have participated in the killings of four police and military officers during the rescue missions of the hostages in the remote jungle region around the Ene and Apurimac valleys in southeastern Peru.

REUTERS

This image provided by NASA shows the sun releasing a M1.7 class flare associated with a prominence eruption. This visually spectacular explosion occurred on the sun’s Northeastern limb, left, and was not directed towards Earth.

AP Photo

A North Korean man and woman hold badminton rackets while walking in a park in Pyongyang, North Korea.

AP Photo

A hairless mouse with black hair on its back is seen at the laboratory in Noda, Japan. Japanese researchers led by professor Takashi Tsuji from Tokyo University of Science, successfully grew hair on hairless mice by implanting follicles created from stem cells, sparking new hopes of a cure for baldness.

AFP/Getty Images

A rescue worker at the site of a factory that collapsed in Jalandhar, India. Workers continued searching for more people buried Sunday night when the three-story blanket factory buckled while nightshift workers were inside.

AP Photo

Palestinian men cross a main road as a sand storm envelops the town of Rafah along the border with Egypt in southern Gaza Strip.

AFP/Getty Images

Secret Service agents stand by as Marine One departs the South Lawn of the White House, carrying President Obama in Washington DC.

EPA

Models display creations by Belarusian designers during a lingerie fashion show in the city of Logoisk near Minsk.

AFP/Getty Images

Models display lingerie creations during the presentation of women’s underwear by Belarussian fashion designers in Logoisk, near Minsk, Belarus.

EPA

Ukraine compete in the Team Technical routine during the FINA Olympic Games Synchronized Swimming Qualification event at the London Aquatics Centre in London, England.

Getty Images

A long range missile is fired off from a mobile launcher from Wheeler Island, off the coast of India, in the Indian state of Orissa. India successfully tested a new long-range Agni V missile capable of delivering a one-tonne nuclear warhead anywhere in regional military rival China, and countries outside Asia.

AFP/Getty Images

Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, a member of female Russian punk band Pussy Riot, stands inside defendands cage in a Moscow court during the hearings on the Pussy Riot case. Three members of the all-woman punk band “Pussy Riot” were detained two months ago, after they climbed on the altar of Moscow’s Christ the Saviour Cathedral — the country’s central place of worship — and sang a song they called a “Punk Prayer”. The women have been charged with hooliganism committed by an organized group — an unusually harsh charge for protesters.

AFP/Getty Images

A vendor carries cardboard boxes next to parked Ambassador taxis in Kolkata. Local taxi unions called for a day long strike to demand an increase in taxi fares following the hike in fuel prices and to protest against alleged police harassment.

AFP/Getty Images

Riot policemen block “football hooligans” during an exercise at Arena Lviv stadium in western Ukrainian city of Lviv in preparation for EURO-2012 cup.

AFP/Getty Images

British Royal Marines, from the British Royal Navy’s ice patrol ship HMS Protector, climbing through ice chambers in Antarctica. The Ministry of Defence reports that at first glance it’s difficult to tell if these commandoes are under water ñ instead they were making their way through a deep blue wilderness after HMS Protector, ventured further south than ever before during a delivery of vital supplies to a research station.

EPA

A man stands inside the art work ‘Five Minutes Of Pure Sculpture’ by British artist Anthony MacCall at the Hamburger Bahnhof museum in Berlin, Thursday, April 19, 2012. Anthony McCall;s work will be used at the official arts festival running alongside the London Olympic and Paraolympic Games 2012. The exhibition in Berlin will run from April 20. until August 12, 2012. (AP Photo/Markus Schreiber)

AP Photo

A model shows off a fashion creation by Ted Baker London as he rappels down a 24-story-high side of the new Revere Hotel Boston Common during a fashion show held to commemorate the opening of the newly renovated hotel, in Boston. Rock climbers and dancers modeled spring and summer creations by the designer as they performed in the vertical fashion show.

Beekeeper She Ping is covered with bees during a challenge to break the world record in Chongqing Municipality. She Ping, 32, broke the world record on Wednesday by covering his body with 33.1 kilograms of bees (about 331,000 bees), overtaking the last world record of 26.8 kilograms of bees which was attempted by a Jiangxi province beekeeper Ruan Liangming in 2008.

REUTERS

North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un waves as he arrives to take pictures with officials, creators and employees of the Mansudae Art Studio in Pyongyang.

REUTERS

The DSR Dodge Charger NHRA Funny Car driven by Matt Hagan explodes during the first round of qualifying at the NHRA 4 Wide Nationals at zMAX Dragway in Concord, N.C.

Rescue workers help an Indian survivor named Nitesh, who was buried for more than 72 hours, out from the rubble of a factory that collapsed, in Jalandhar, India.

AP

A group of Taiwanese women paratroops pose for photos after a drill held at Taiwan’s northern Hsinchu airbase. Taiwan tested its ability to defend one of its largest air bases against Chinese invasion, a scenario experts insisted remained relevant in an age of missile and cyber attacks.

AFP/Getty Images

Tracy Martin (2nd L) and Sybrina Fulton (2nd R), parents of Trayvon Martin, arrive at the courthouse along with lawyers Daryl Parks (L) land Benjamin Crump prior to George Zimmerman’s appearance before Circuit Judge Kenneth Lester Jr. for a bond hearing on second degree murder charges in the shooting death of Trayvon Martin at the Seminole County Courthouse in Sanford, Florida.

REUTERS

Austrian gymnast and Olympic hopeful Caroline Weber warms-up during a training session in Vienna. Weber, 26, who practices six hours a day five days a week, will participate in the rhythmic gymnastics competition at the London 2012 Olympic games.

REUTERS

NYPD Investigators carry pieces of concrete out of a basement of a building on the corner of Wooster Street and Prince Street in the Manhattan borough of New York, during a renewed investigation into the 1979 disappearance of 6-year-old Etan†Patz. Patz vanished after leaving his family’s home for a short walk to his school bus stop. NYPD spokesperson Paul Browne says the building being searched for his remains is about a block from where the family lived.

Mary Altaffer/AP Photo

Afghan Kuchi nomads ride a donkey near Herat city. The Kuchi people of Afghanistan are nomads who move to the northeast in the spring and summer months where it is cooler and there is plenty of food for their herds.

AFP/Getty Images

Japanese swimmers compete in teams technical routine during the FINA Olympic Games Synchronized Swimming Qualification competition at the Aquatics Centre in the Olympic Park in London.

AFP/Getty Images

Student union members affiliated to the Nepal Student Union (NSU), set fire to a government-owned motorbike during their protest in Kathmandu.

REUTERS

Philippine firemen extinguish a fire at an informal settlers housing in Manila. Around 150 families from an informal settlement area lost their homes.

AFP/Getty Images

A giant puppet, part of a street theatre production entitled “Sea Odyssey” travels through the streets of Liverpool in north-west England. Two puppets, a man and a girl, his niece, will roam through the city’s streets looking for each other during the three day production. The free event, organized by French company Royal de Luxe is one of a series of events marking the 100th anniversary of the sinking of The Titanic.

AFP/Getty Images

People attend Friday prayers in Tahrir square in Cairo. Tens of thousands of Egyptians demanded on Friday that their military rulers stick to a pledge to hand over power by mid-year after a row over who can run in the presidential election raised doubts about the army’s commitment to democracy.

REUTERS

A model displays a creation by designer Asya Kutyan during a fashion contest for students of Russian designer Slava Zaitsev at the Slava Zaitsev fashion school in Moscow, Russia.

EPA

Young Indian boys climb poles before jumping into a lake to keep cool in Kolkata. Temperatures rose to nearly 40 degrees in Kolkata and are set to rise over the next few days.

AFP/Getty Images

A couple embraces as they stand in the middle of “Les Deux Plateaux” installation, more commonly referred to as the “Colonnes de Buren” (Buren’s Columns) designed by French conceptual artist Daniel Buren in the Palais royal gardens in Paris.

REUTERS

George Zimmerman arrives shackled during a bond hearing in Sanford, Florida. Zimmerman surrendered his passport to a Florida court on Friday during a bail hearing over the shooting death of unarmed Florida teenager Trayvon Martin, a case that has captivated the United States and prompted civil rights demonstrations around the country.

REUTERS

President Barack Obama sits on the famed Rosa Parks bus at the Henry Ford Museum following an event in Dearborn, Michigan, on April 18. Rosa Parks refused to sit in the back of the bus on December 1, 1955 in Montgomery, Alabama, and this led to a bus boycott by African Americans. The bus is now considered a shrine in the civil rights movement.

Pete Souza/The White House

Filipino model Sandra Seifert painted half of her body depicting the Earth’s oceans and continents holds a placard in a new advertisement for People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) Asia in the Makati’s financial district, south of Manila, Philippines. The ad in PETA’s statement reiterates how animal agriculture is one of the leading causes of climate change. And also urging people to “go vegetarian” and “save the planet.”